Past cryptocurrency tokens, the blockchain additionally allows analysts to get a clearer image of virtually any GameFi mission, NFT, market, or DeFi protocol, due to Footprint.
At Footprint, we’ve created a technique that compiles and meaningfully aggregates the uncooked blockchain knowledge. And this is applicable to programming integrations.
1 . Methods to work with the blockchain knowledge
Let’s first discuss programming integration strategies. There are just a few alternative ways to work with blockchain knowledge, and your chosen strategy will rely in your particular wants and targets. Here’s a fast overview:
1.1 Blockchain explorers
A blockchain explorer is a web site or software that permits you to view the info saved on a blockchain. This is usually a fast and simple technique to entry details about particular transactions, blocks, and different knowledge on the blockchain.
Blockchain explorers is usually a great tool for accessing and viewing knowledge saved on a blockchain, however they do have some limitations for software program integrations. Listed below are just a few examples of issues that blockchain explorers might lack:
- Primarily centered on uncooked knowledge. Blockchain explorers sometimes show uncooked knowledge from the blockchain. That requires implementing the abstractions over the uncooked knowledge, which might be tedious, particularly for initiatives centered on supply fairly than on the technical particulars of sure blockchains.
- Customization choices: Blockchain explorers are sometimes designed to be user-friendly and simple to make use of, which suggests they could not provide many customization choices. This will make it troublesome to tailor the explorer to your particular wants or preferences.
- Superior search performance: Blockchain explorers usually have primary search performance however might not help extra superior search options similar to Boolean operators or common expressions. This will make it troublesome to seek for particular info on the blockchain.
- Interactivity: Many blockchain explorers are primarily read-only instruments.
Whereas blockchain explorers is usually a useful technique to entry and think about blockchain uncooked knowledge, they do have some limitations that you ought to be conscious of earlier than deciding to implement your resolution infrastructure based mostly on them.
1.2 Personal indexing resolution
Organising your individual indexer to work with blockchain knowledge can have a number of benefits and potential disadvantages. Listed below are just a few examples of every:
Benefits:
- Customization: While you arrange your indexer, you have got full management over how the info is listed and accessed. This will help you tailor the indexer to your particular wants and preferences.
- Independence: By establishing your indexer, you aren’t counting on a third-party service to take care of and replace the index. This will present higher management and adaptability in your work with blockchain knowledge.
- Improved safety: While you arrange your individual indexer, you possibly can implement your individual safety measures to guard the info and stop unauthorized entry.
Disadvantages:
- Complexity: Organising your indexer is usually a complicated and time-consuming course of, particularly in case you are new to working with blockchain know-how. You will have to know the underlying know-how and be prepared to take a position the effort and time required to get the indexer up and working.
- Upkeep: After getting arrange your indexer, you’ll be chargeable for sustaining and updating it. This will require ongoing technical experience and sources, which is usually a drawback should you shouldn’t have the required information or help.
- Price: Organising your individual indexer might be costly, as you have to buy the {hardware} and software program required to run the indexer and pay for any related prices, similar to electrical energy and bandwidth.
General, establishing your individual indexer to work with blockchain knowledge can present higher management and customization, nevertheless it can be a fancy and costly course of. It’s essential to contemplate the benefits and downsides rigorously earlier than deciding if that is the correct strategy.
1.3 Database as a service
Utilizing a third-party indexer to work with blockchain knowledge can have a number of benefits and potential disadvantages. Listed below are just a few examples of every:
Benefits:
- Ease of use: Third-party indexers are sometimes designed to be straightforward to make use of, which suggests you can begin working with the blockchain knowledge shortly and with out having to study loads of technical particulars or working your customized indexing resolution (doesn’t matter whether or not it’s self-developed or a ready-made SDK)
- Superior search performance: Many third-party indexers provide superior search performance, similar to Boolean operators and common expressions, making trying to find particular info on the blockchain simpler. These can have many precise implementations, however the listed knowledge is usually added to a relational database, which means full SQL help.
- Scalability: Third-party indexers are sometimes designed to deal with massive volumes of information, which suggests they could be a good possibility if you should search or entry knowledge from a big blockchain.
- Reliability: Third-party indexers are sometimes run by skilled organizations with the sources and experience to make sure the index is all the time up-to-date and correct. Options will not be all the time decentralized, as they’re centered on processing large quantities of information, however the overwhelming majority are open supply, which will increase person confidence within the service.
Disadvantages:
- Dependency: Utilizing a third-party indexer, you depend on that service to take care of and replace the index. If the indexer experiences technical points or goes offline, you might not be capable of entry the blockchain knowledge.
- Restricted customization: Third-party indexers are sometimes designed to be straightforward to make use of, which suggests they could not provide many customization choices. This will make it troublesome to tailor the indexer to your particular wants or preferences.
- Price: Some third-party indexers might cost a price for his or her providers, which is usually a drawback should you work on a good price range.
In abstract, utilizing a third-party indexer to work with blockchain knowledge is usually a handy and efficient possibility, however restricted and generally lack customization.
1.4 Abstract
The purpose of Footprint is primarily to decrease the bar for getting into analytics and dealing with web3 knowledge. This strategy is a stability between ease of use and adaptability. That’s the reason one in every of our providers is DaaS (Database because the service kind). Earlier than we take a better take a look at some great benefits of our service, we may even take a look at one other implementation possibility for the indexer, specifically a self-written resolution or SDK.
Within the subsequent chapters, we are going to discover the core characteristic that read-only blockchain APIs ought to have. We are going to take a look at the issue from completely different angles and take into account different options. A number of the most essential options of blockchain APIs embody the next:
- Ease of use and adaptability
- Scalability
- Compatibility
Ease of use and adaptability are two essential options of blockchain APIs. A blockchain API that’s straightforward to make use of will make it simpler for builders to start out constructing blockchain-based purposes, permitting them to shortly prototype and check their concepts with out spending loads of time studying how you can use the API.
Flexibility, then again, refers back to the skill of a blockchain API to help a variety of use circumstances and purposes. A versatile blockchain API will enable builders to entry completely different elements of the blockchain and construct purposes that work together with various kinds of sensible contracts and different blockchain-based belongings. This may be particularly essential for builders trying to construct purposes that can be utilized in numerous industries and contexts.
General, having a blockchain API that’s each straightforward to make use of and versatile could make it simpler for builders to construct progressive and helpful purposes that may make the most of blockchain know-how’s distinctive options and capabilities.
1.5 Footprint Analytics
Ease of use and adaptability is ensured by our knowledge group, which impacts all features of interactions with the Footprint ecosystem. Footprint has an API constructed on high of this knowledge mannequin that permits customers to construct full-fledged knowledge pipelines for knowledge evaluation and machine studying purposes. We name it a Knowledge API. We’re concurrently supporting two sorts of API and two sub-types inside one in every of them to cowl many of the circumstances: Relaxation API and SQL API.
REST API permits us to shortly combine an software since every endpoint is a pre-built, hard-coded script that we’ve got recognized as probably the most standard. All endpoints include easy-to-use instruments for filtering, sorting, and pagination.
Because of the SQL API’s extra adaptable interface, you possibly can get hold of this for extra particular circumstances. One good thing about utilizing the identical SQL queries in each the online software and the API is that it may simplify growth and upkeep. By utilizing the identical queries in each interfaces, builders can keep away from the necessity to write and keep separate units of queries for the online software and the API. This will save effort and time and scale back the chance of errors or inconsistencies between the 2 interfaces.
Moreover, utilizing the identical SQL queries in each the online software and the API could make it simpler for builders to create a seamless person expertise. By utilizing the identical queries, builders can make sure that the info accessed and manipulated by the online software and the API is constant, permitting customers to modify between the 2 interfaces with out encountering any inconsistencies or disruptions.
1.6 Different platforms
Many various analytics options enable the person to research completely different networks based on numerous ranges of necessities. Nonetheless, for essentially the most half, different options are likely to go to extremes, implementing both a really versatile product that requires information of question languages and even programming languages or a quite simple interface with ready scripts and, accordingly, low flexibility.
Options like Moralis and Quicknode solely have a REST API interface. Although there are numerous endpoints, it nonetheless limits the developer within the flexibility of the info returned.
Dune has not too long ago launched its API. This asynchronous resolution implies the preliminary existence of a question on the platform below a sure id (dune.com/question/{{question id}}), by which it’s attainable to execute queries within the type of SQL. The important thing limitation of this resolution is the necessity to pre-modify the SQL on the platform in order that the up to date question is subsequently executed.
Chainbase releases SQL API in the identical approach as Footprint. Nonetheless, in contrast to Footprint, Chainbase doesn’t have such refined ETL, so SQL queries can solely be executed for uncooked transactions.
2. Scalability
Blockchain APIs ought to be capable of deal with massive volumes of information and transactions, permitting builders to construct purposes that can be utilized by many customers concurrently.
2.1 Footprint Analytics
2.1.1 Fashionable open knowledge stack
The Footprint group has made a number of architectural upgrades since its launch in August 2021, due to its robust skill to discover and iterate on know-how. In lower than a 12 months and a half, the group has been in a position to implement these modifications efficiently. This can be a testomony to the group’s talent and experience in know-how and knowledge science.
By way of experimentation, Footprint iteratively made three world architectural updates, finally arriving at an structure that meets the necessities of the platform’s numerous use circumstances. Extra info on the evolution of the implementation might be discovered within the subsequent article:
2.1.2 Sync and async executions
Inside Footprint, there are two modes for executing queries to the SQL API – synchronous and asynchronous. API calls to the synchronous endpoint suggest the SQL question can be executed by the Footprint servers as quickly as an HTTP request is obtained from the appliance, thereby sustaining the connection. This is smart when utilizing light-weight requests, as on this case, the appliance doesn’t have to attend lengthy for execution. The main points might be discovered on the next web page:
https://docs.footprint.network/reference/post_native
For heavy requests, it is strongly recommended to make use of an asynchronous request. In contrast to a synchronous one, the consumer software doesn’t have to take care of a reference to the server throughout execution. As an alternative, it may get the request-id instantly, based on which, after a while, individually get the execution outcomes. As a part of the asynchronous API, two-step must be lined to fetch the info – the next endpoint can be used to ship an “order” for SQL execution:
https://docs.footprint.network/reference/post_native-async
The second step is to ship a request to obtain outcomes by the identifier obtained when accessing the earlier endpoint. The endpoint for this second step is described on the next web page:
https://docs.footprint.community/reference/get_native-execution-id-results
2.2 Different options
DuneV2 modifications the entire database structure. Dune is now transitioning away from a PostgreSQL database to an Occasion of [[Apache Spark]] hosted on [[Databricks]]. Solely asynchronous API.
3. Compatibility
Blockchain APIs must be appropriate with a variety of programming languages and growth environments in order that builders can use the instruments and frameworks they’re most conversant in.
REST is less complicated to combine since every programming language has many libraries that present comfy work with one of these API. Nonetheless, ultimately, each SQL APIs and REST work over HTTP, so the event expertise is nearly equivalent concerning sending a request by default.
4. Abstract
As we’ve got analyzed, normally, it’s sufficient for an software to make use of ready-made DaaS options given that they will return abstractions (not simply uncooked knowledge) and save loads of money and time, as they finally enable groups to focus not on infrastructure however on the worth of the product. Going by numerous options within the DaaS market,
Footprint appears to be essentially the most optimum to combine, because it has essentially the most versatile mannequin for producing requests whereas being each straightforward to make use of and in addition having the trendy open-source knowledge stack below the hood, which ensures uninterrupted and, most significantly, quick execution of essentially the most complicated requests.